Annabel Murray Ring of Claddagh (pdf)

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influence. Apart from his resentment of her presence, she was afraid that, in
any prolonged association with him, she might not be able to conceal the
humiliating truth, that he troubled her peace of mind as no other man had
been able to on such short acquaintance. On the other hand, she didn't want
to be accused of acquisitiveness, a charge he would certainly level against
her if Claddagh Hall had to be sold.
But two far stronger considerations motivated her change of heart : the
genuine affection she had come to feel for Bridie O'Rourke and, incredibly
romantic folly, that she had fallen in love at first sight, a devotion that only
a lifetime's servitude could fulfil, with Claddagh Hall itself. Her inward
communing with herself concluded, she met Fergus's ironic gaze with a
defiant tilt of her head.
'All right! We'll do it, but only,' she added hastily, 'for the sake of the Hall
and Aunt Bridie.'
'Of course! Although we might even go further,' he said slowly, and as her
eyes questioned him, 'the most obvious solution to all this is for us to get
married. Then our interests would be mutual.'
The crazy, startled gymnastics her heart was performing made Noelle slow
in replying, but when she did, her voice was cold with the knowledge that he
was mocking her and she didn't find it amusing.
'Ours will be a purely business arrangement.'
CHAPTER THREE
'I ALMOST changed my mind again when he said that,' Noelle confessed
afterwards to her great-aunt.
'It sounds a very sensible idea to me,' Bridie confounded her by saying. 'I
must admit it's one that had occurred to me. You could do far worse. He'll
make a good husband, a real rock to lean on, quite unlike poor Noel. Your
father, my dear, was not always a reliable man. Yes, the more I think about
it, the better I like the idea of you and Fergus together.'
Noelle was not unaware of Bridie's strong partiality for her great-nephew,
but she wouldn't have suspected her of a tendency towards matchmaking.
'Forget it, Aunt Bridie,' she advised. 'Even if I were mad enough to agree,
purely for the sake of Claddagh, it would be a total disaster. You must have
noticed the effect we have on each other?'
'Hmmm!' was Bridie's only comment.
'I only agreed to stay on,' Noelle continued hastily, 'because I won't have
him accusing me of being after the money. I really don't need it. You see . . .'
Her phone calls, home to John Madox-Browne, and to her office, had been
received with dismayed incredulity. Both John and the Cohens had pleaded
with her to reconsider.
'How you can even think of giving everything up, just to vegetate in a
broken-down old house in Ireland,' Rachel Cohen wailed. 'You want to go
mad? What will you do with yourself?'
'I shan't be giving it all up,' Noelle explained. 'I shall still design clothes for
Noelle et Cie and I'll be backwards and forwards so often you'll scarcely
notice I'm not there all the time.'
'But to plough so much of your hard-earned money into a place that only
half belongs to you.'
'That,' said Noelle sharply, 'is top secret as far as Fergus is concerned. He's
not to know that it's my money, which is why I want Manny to come over to
Claddagh and say he's an art expert from one of the big London firms.'
'Manny? An expert? On art?' Rachel screamed with laughter. 'My Manny is
a business man. What he knows about pictures you could write on your
thumbnail.'
'He only has to pretend, for heaven's sake. I've dug some old oil paintings
out of the attic. I just want Manny to rave about them. I'll tell him how much
to offer
'Who is paying for these pictures?' Rachel asked suspiciously.
'I am,' Noelle laughed. 'All Manny has to do is take them away.'
'And what do you want he should do with them?'
'Oh, I don't know. Yes, I do. You can hang them in the salon.'
'This "cousin" of yours,' Rachel probed suspiciously, 'you haven't by any
chance fallen for him?'
'Certainly not,' Noelle denied, too hastily, 'I can't stand him, and the feeling
seems to be mutual!'
An edited version of this conversation, and her little plot to help save
Claddagh, Noelle retailed to her great-aunt, with the strict injunction that
not a word of it must ever be revealed to Fergus.
'But it would prove to him how wrong he was about you,' Bridie O'Rourke
protested, half laughing, half dismayed by her knowledge.
'I don't have to prove myself to him,' Noelle said proudly. 'If he ever
changes his mind, it must be of his own accord. But oh, Aunt, if you could
have heard Rachel! She and Manny do so hate parting with money!' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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